Ripley from Alien named queen of sci-fi

Ripley, Sigourney Weaver's character in Alien, has outgunned Princess Leia and Uhura in an online listing of "the 25 women who shook sci-fi."

The unofficial list at TotalSciFi.com cuts across the realms of film, TV and puppetry to find speculative fiction’s “most important” female characters. Strength and competence blends with beauty to qualify the included heroines.

It’s hard to argue with most of the names on the list, except maybe Leeloo (Milla Jovovich) from the awful and silly Fifth Element or Halle Berry’s opiate performance as Storm in X-Men. But most disagreements will stem from the rankings. Princess Leia down at number six? Xena just squeezing in at 23?

The list also provides a couple of interesting points of trivia. Do you care that Megan Fox’s character in Transformers is named Mikaela Banes? Most star-struck guys just refer to her by her stage name. And the end credits of Supermarionation’s Stingray were written for that show’s puppet babe, the mute Marina.